A few years back, I started hearing chickens crowing in the parking lot at work. (A major financial company in NH… a very odd place for chickens) A day or two went by of me hearing them on the way in, so I had to find them. Turns out there were 4 cages left in the woodline, with a few chickens hanging around them.
I went by security to ask what the deal was, and apparently I was the first one to report it. Seemed odd to me that so much time had gone by with no reporting, especially as they are in view of many of the spots in the lot.
The next day they were gone, and a further inquiry of security found that a local farmer had come by based on a call from them.
You’d be surprised at how quickly you can learn to tune out a Rooster crowing. My uncle had three barns full of chickens (over 10,000) with Roosters. He sold hatching eggs to a hatchery.
The barns were maybe a five minute walk from the house. We never paid much attention to crowing. Visitors would comment about it, but we slept like a baby every night.
I live 7 blocks from a railroad track. Two weeks after moving here I had already learned to tune out the train whistle.
The rooster removal team has come and gone. It was…well, it was a damn good thing I used the bathroom shortly before they showed up, because otherwise I’d have pissed myself laughing. Chickens are spry critters, as you know if you’ve ever tried to chase one down. The chase ranged over most of our back hill, across the neighbor’s yard, across the street through two more yards, back to our side of the street, into yet another yard, and back to the edge of the street. If he hadn’t tried to hide under a tree that backed up into a section of fencing, we might be chasing him yet.
The guy who came to get him says he looks to be an escaped fighting rooster. There’s no shortage of those around the county, but he’d have to have strayed a ridiculous distance from home to get to our house.
A few weeks ago at work someone said “You probably don’t hear that any more huh?” I looked at him and (honestly) said “ hear what?” “The airplanes” “Oh right, nope don’t really notice them, at least not the quieter ones”
I’ve been working across the street from a major airport for very long time and I’ve been living around the other corner of it for about 10 years. Honestly, not hearing airplanes would be odd. That and they’ve gotten much quieter over the years. Standard commercial airliners barely register with me anymore. Military planes, jets, helicopters, things that rattle the windows, that’s a bit different. Hell, I don’t even notice the presidential motorcade sometimes after seeing it umpteen times (and Obama’s is really small compared to Bush II’s).
In related animal dumping stories, I used to know the manager of a little city petting zoo. Once, someone dumped a full-grown pot-bellied pig on them.
Without opening the locked gate.
Not in the sense we typically think of birds flying, no. They can flutter up to roosting places and flutter/glide a pretty good ways, but 20-30 yards at shoulder height is a hell of a flight for a chicken, even a light-bodied one. For a medium-weight one, like a standard-breed laying hen, 10-15 is about it. It would take a really long time to get half a mile doing it in those kind of increments.
Years ago, some idiot smuggled a guinea pig into the zoo where I work, and dumped it on exhibit with the others. (Yes, we have a guinea pig exhibit. It’s very popular with the under 5 set.) The problem was, all of ours were female, and the usurper… wasn’t. Although the keepers noticed and removed the stranger ASAP, the damage had been done, and a few weeks later, there was a population boom.
Every now and then we get a box left at the gates with some critter in it. We usually just call Animal Services. It’s rare for (good) zoos nowadays to accept animal donations at all, and anonymous dumped animals are usually left for a reason. Reminder to everyone: before you get an exotic pet, have a back up plan for rehoming it when you can’t look after it any more. Don’t assume you can just give it to the zoo. We don’t want it!
I used to live a couple of blocks from a hospital. I had no trouble sleeping through the ambulance sirens. In fact, I liked knowing it was that close, in case of emergency.
My guess is someone got a cute, tiny, chick (Awww…) for last Easter. One year later, the cute chick is a strutting, big-ass, loud-crowing rooster, and the owner thought your yard, which already had chickens, was an ideal candidate for his new home.
hear what?” “The airplanes” “Oh right, nope don’t really notice them, at least not the quieter ones”